Rewriting, again!

The best words don't arrive easily. It takes writing, rewriting, and rewriting again and again. With my novel ALONE I’d gone through who knows how many rewrites (I’m not one for keeping track of drafts). It went through a few rejections and then sat in my files for years.
 
One day I decided to pull it out and look at it again. Some of it I hated. Some of it I liked. I’d also learned quite a lot more about writing in the intervening years and had even become a writing instructor myself. I now knew the manuscript was too long as well.
 
So . . . time to rewrite again.
 
Here’s what I simply cut:

• where I explained too much
• unnecessary description
• weasel words (overused filler words)

 
I also tightened scenes, paragraphs, and sentences to get to the action or conflict more quickly. This included asking myself questions. Are these important plot details? Does this move the story forward? Does this show character?
 
Rewriting is not all about cutting. I also had to see what I was missing or misusing. Fix where my characters weren’t believable. Check my verb choices. Were any passive? Overused? Vague? Unfortunately, yes.
 
The resulting manuscript was more than 11,000 words shorter. Whew!
 
But is it the best it can be? No. Next will be time to work on requested edits by my editor.

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